The carbonnade that wasn't: Chicken and Ale Stew

It all started with beer. And beef.

No, this isn't a wayward tale that begins in a pub and finishes with me communing with a herd of Waygu, pouring Methuselahs of Sapporo into their four-chambered gullets...

Although that could be fun...if a brewer or a beef farmer wanted to sponsor me on such a journey, I'm open to discussion...

But I digress.

It's winter, in Canada. Snow blankets the ground and at times a fierce wind chills me to my very core. In my world, it's not salad eating season. I don't want lemonade or iced tea. I don't want sushi. I don't want mellons dripping with honeyed juices.

I want hearty, long-cooked food with earthy and rich flavours. I want beef. I want oniony and mushroomy gravies. I want beef-stuffed oven-baked pastas. I want giant burgers with poutine. I want hot chocolate...and this is the only time of year I really crave...beer. Not just any beer. Stout--deep, rich and heady with chocolaty notes. Oh, it's lovely stuff.

But I'm not much of a drinker--the occasional half pint (yes, I'm the one who orders half a pint while out), but then the rest of my cravings go into food: cakes, stews, breads.

Knowing how well beer and beef play together--beer-braised beef, steak and Guinness stew, beer-based sauces on barbecued steak--I fixated on Carbonnade à la flamande: a lovely, rich oniony Belgian beef and beer stew. I looked at a few recipes and cobbled together a plan.

I executed that plan.

I wasn't enamoured with the result.

Don't get me wrong--it was good: the beef was tender, the herbs and spices were and the aleish broth was oniony and and sort of rich. It definitely wasn't deep and lush as I'd hoped. But it was good.

When I revisited my plans and did more research into carbonnades, I found my error.

In all my frenetic note-taking, I didn't pay attention to what sort of Beglian beer to use. I should have used a dark brew. I bought a six-pack of whitbier. In other words I bought something better suited for lighter and crisper summertime sipping than a sturdier and darker pint.

Oh well. I looked at my remaining bottles of Hoegaarden. Truthfully, I read my remaining bottles of Hoegaarden. Two words caught my attention: orange and coriander.

Truthfully (again) I didn't pick up those notes when I tasted the ale. Mind you, I also don't pick up the plummy, oaky, peachy or other notes wines are purported to have.

But I digress (again).

I can work with coriander and orange and beer. I can work with those ingredients with chicken and mushrooms. I also happened to have a couple of links of Alsatian sausage in my freezer, from one of of the butchers I usually frequent, and though their peppery-clove spicing would also compliment the other flavours.

Every velvety and meaty mouthful combines sweet and spicy, with just a little bit of latent sourness from the ale and the mustard. The aromas hint at citrus and clove, in all its chickenny and sausagey goodness.

It may not be a carbonnade, but it was warming and made my tummy incredibly happy.

Chicken and Ale Stew with mushrooms and sausage
Yield: approx 2L

Ingredients
For the marinade:
2 cloves garlic, minced
0.25tsp salt
0.5tsp black pepper
1tsp ground coriander, toasted (see notes)
0.25tsp ground cloves
1 sprig, thyme
juice of one orange
500ml (2cups) Belgian pale ale--approx 1.5 bottles (I used Hougaarden)

For the stew:
500g (1lb) bonless, skinless chicken (dark and light meat), cut into bite-sized chunks.
200g (7oz) mildly spiced sausage (I used Alsatian-style sausages), sliced into coins (optional)
butter or oil for frying
1tsp ground coriander, toasted (see notes)
0.25tsp ground cloves
2 ribs celery, finely chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped
4 onions, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
salt
pepper
500ml (2c) chicken or vegetable stock
2 sprigs thyme
1 bay leaf
1Tbsp brown sugar
2-3Tbsp whole grain mustard
4Tbsp soft butter
3Tbsp all-purpose flour
grated zest of one orange
a handful of chopped parsley (optional)
500g (1lb) mushrooms, sliced

Method:
Mix the marinade ingredients together and pour over chicken pieces. Let sit while you brown the sausage coins in batches in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Remove the browned meat to a plate. Brown the marinated chicken in the sausage fat (adding additional oil or butter, if needed). Remove the browned chicken pieces to a plate.

Over a medium flame, add the coriander and cloves to the hot fat and fry for about a minute, until the air is perfumed. Add the celery, carrots and onions to the pot and cook until the onions are transluscent. Add the garlic, some salt and pepper and stir for about 30-45 seconds, until the garlic scents the air.

Add the marinating liquid and bring to a boil. Add the sausage, chicken and chicken stock. Stir in the brown sugar and bring it back to a boil. Add thyme sprigs and bay leaf. Lower heat and let simmer for about an hour (or longer, if you wish).

While the stew simmers, sauté mushrooms and set aside.

When the stew is done simmering, make a beurre manié with the flour and butter by kneading them together into a paste. Add a ladle or two of the stew's liquid and stir into the butter-flour paste. Stir this into the stew. Turn up the heat and bring the stew back up to a boil and let boil for a few minutes. Fold the mushrooms, orange zest and chopped parsley (if using) into the stew.

Serve over boiled, buttered potatoes, egg noodles or rice.

Notes:

• To toast spices, simply put them in a dry frying pan and place over a medium heat. Stir occasionally until the oils release their scent.
• If you don't have mild sausage, you can totally omit it or use a smaller quantity of chopped, bacon--say four rashers--or ham (100-150g).
  
  
  cheers!
  jasmine
  I'm a quill for hire!
  
  
  
  

Spinach, Mushroom and Tomato Tart

I am horrible at this Facebook thing.

I resisted getting an account for ages--my friends know where I am (and if they don't I'm easily found), and I know where they are; between work, this blog and my Twitter account I spend enough of my life staring into an illuminated screen, tapping madly away at a well-worn keyboard; my innate distrust of social networking sites and the horrid marketers that lurk within.

But I have an account, mostly neglected. Like many other social networking sites I'm on, I can go ages without logging in. Often when I do, it's only to respond to a note or a friend request. Also when I do, I'm amazed at all the names the system suggests I connect with.

Take today for example. As I type, the Unseen Facebook Overlords suggest I should connect with 27 people. Normal, I suppose. The thing is, I only recognise two of them. The rest? I haven't a clue.

I imagine some of them to have some sort of connection to the people I've accepted as friends on the site...I also imagine some of them to be the equivalent of eHarmony matches...you know the highly questionable ones that only seem to be compatable because they match your gender preferences and nothing else...but in Facebookland they show up because they have a profile and you have a profile. When I remove someone from the list because there is no connection whatsoever, they are replaced with someone else...also with whom there is no connection whatsoever.

Bizarre.

But I do check in when I get a note. And it's one of these notes that led to today's recipe. A friend asked if I had a quiche recipe that used spinach, mushrooms and tomatoes--her latest attempt didn't appeal. Hmmm....I had a tomato tart recipe and a spinach quiche recipe, so I took this as an opportunity to play in my kitchen (as if I really need to be prompted to do that) and developed this recipe.

I didn't know whether to call this a quiche or a tart. I see quiches as bits suspended in eggy cream, whereas here eggy cream binds together the spinach and mushrooms. Not wanting the quiche police (I'm sure they exist, with a rule book filled with yolk to cheese ratios) after me, I went the safer route and christened it a tart.

There aren't any real tricks to this recipe, but I will say quickly zapping the cream cheese into an oozy puddle does make easy work of mixing it into the milk and eggs. The tart itself is subtantial, but not heavy and pairs well with a small bowl of soup or a leafy salad.


Spinach, Mushroom and Tomato Tart
Makes one 20cm/8" tart

fat for frying (olive oil, butter, canola, bacon fat)
90g (0.75c) mushrooms, sliced
salt
pepper
1 shallot, minced
1 garlic cloves, minced
300g (10oz) (1 pkg) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
100g (3.5oz) cream cheese, softened
125ml (0.5c) full fat milk
1 Tbsp dijon mustard
a good pinch of dried thyme (0.25-0.5tsp)
2 eggs
1 prebaked pie shell
1-2 tomatoes, thinly sliced

Preheat oven to 200C/400F.

Sauté mushrooms, with pinches of salt and pepper, until soft. Add the shallots and stir until translucent. Add the garlic. When they release their scent, add the spinach and sauté for a few minutes. Take off the hob to cool.

Whisk the softened cream cheese, milk, mustard and eggs together until smooth. Add salt, pepper and thyme and mix well. Stir in the spinach mixture.

Pour into pie shell and top with sliced tomatoes and sprinkle, if you wish, with black pepper. Bake for 25-35 minutes or until the eggs have set.

Cool on a wire rack; serve warm.


cheers!
jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Welcome home Jenny

A few weeks ago Jenny of All Things Edible invited all of us over for her housewarming. The catch is we are to bring something to nibble or sip on.

I was lucky enough to meet our lovely Jenny a couple of years ago when she swung through Toronto. She, our favourite Puff of Cream and I spent a few hours together shopping, eating and talking. Jenny is absolutely darling and I'd be so happy to get together with her again.



So when she emailed the event announcement, I knew I wanted to particpate. But what to bring? We'd just done our DB tuiles and although she gave us license to morph them into something housewarmy, I didn't want to go that route.



Given it's winter here in Canada, I thought I'd offer up something warm and savoury to share with the crowd. I decided upon a variant of my bacon, ramp and mushroom swirls--I like the flavour combination: tangy cream cheese, sweet onion and savoury mushrooms. Instead of little spiral rolls, I decided on a mini-springroll like offering, this time with phyllo.



In general, these mini rolls are very easy to whip up. Just pre-cook and cool the filling prior to spooning it onto the phyllo. Roll them up and bake in a preheated oven (380C/375F) for about 10-15 minutes, or until golden.


As usual, I didn't really write out quantities. Sorry. I know...a bad habit..especially if you want to recreate these...just rough out approximately one to one and a half teaspoon of prepared filling per roll

- a knob of butter

- a couple of cloves of minced garlic

- a medium minced onion

- a few handfuls of chopped mushrooms

- a splash of white wine vinegar

- salt

- pepper

- thyme

- softened cream cheese--enough to bind

Soften the onions in butter, add the mushrooms and garlic and stir while letting the mushrooms soften. Add the vinegar, then season to taste. Remove from heat and add the softened cream cheese. Let cool before filling the rolls.

cheers!
jasmine

Perogying Parliament

You know I couldn't let this opportunity pass me by.

In December our Governor General prorogued Parliament. The playpen opened, our MPs escaped to their respective ridings and the dramas of December were postponed to today. Since then, the Liberals acclaimed a new leader and, quite honestly I'm not sure what's happening with the coalition. If those in power lose the confidence motion we could see another election or maybe the coalition gets its chance. Regardless, it might be an interesting day on The Hill.

As mentioned in a previous post I wasn't the only person who kept hearing "perogying of Parliament" instead of "proroguing Parliament." I'm sure some think wrapping our politicians in dough, boiling before searing them and serving them with sour cream and chopped bacon would be slightly more than a propos. I'm a firm believer that everything is better with bacon, but really...who would do that to a good rasher or two of bacon?

Perogies are one of my Farmers' Market staples--the heady treat of hot bacon and onions atop fried dumplings, served with cold sour cream lures many a person to her stall. Really, it's a little Styrofoam box of hearty heaven.

At home, I root about the kitchen for topping ideas. Spinach with feta, curried mushrooms or sausage with tomatoes--whatever looks interesting will be combined and served with these potato dumpings.

With this iteration I pretty kept my inspiration from the Farmers' Markety offering I adore. Like so many things that come out of my kitchen, this really isn't recipe-able. I treat it as a not-so-random sequence of ingredients flung into my frying pan. The only real tips I have are to be light with the salt as streaky bacon is usually salted and to make the topping first, using the rendered fat to sear the dumplings. It is bacon fat...

Bacon-Mushroom topping
for two servings of perogies

oil
4 rashers of streaky bacon, chopped
half a globe onion, sliced into half lunettes
one clove of garlic, minced
a handful of sliced mushrooms
ground pepper
salt

Crisp the chopped bacon in a preheated, oiled frying pan. Remove the bits and add the onions. Let soften. Add the garlic and stir for about 30 seconds before adding the mushrooms. Add oil as you see fit, to let the mushrooms soften. Salt and pepper as your palate dictates.

cheers!
jasmine

BBB & WCB: For Sher

On 20 July 2008 the foodblogging and catblogging worlds lost a dear friend. Sherry Cermak of What Did You Eat passed away of a heart attack. She was lucky enough to have found Bob, the loving man who became her husband. She was an attorney, a wildlife rehabilitator, an avid foodie and a lover of cats.

She was a member of The Bread Baking Babes, a ragtag group of people who, like The Daring Bakers, complete a monthly baking challenge. The BBBs held a memorial food event for her that was open to everyone on 27 July--I wanted to participate, but that was the day after the first anniversary of My Darling One's passing and I was very emotionally drained and didn't think I could post something coherent that would do her spirit justice.

This weekend's Weekend Cat Blogging event is also a memorial event with a food theme, and is Hosted by the House of the (Mostly) Black and White Cats. I'd participated in a couple WCBs in the past, and well, I know I've been remiss in updating you guys on my furry companions, so I thought this might be a good time to do that.

I went through her site, looking for a recipe to create and post--not just for me, but also for Paz who was interested in sharing this post with me--Sher was in her thoughts as well, but Paz's recovery bed is keeping her from the kitchen.

Sher's site had a bit of everything, but it was pretty clear she really liked meatballs. When I saw her mushroom balls post cross my screen, it just seemed to be the right thing to do: not only do I love mushrooms, but Michael did as well.

Sher's page suggested pairing them with a spicy red sauce. I decided to serve them with roasted tomatoes on a bed of rice.

I used cremini mushrooms as I couldn't find portabellos. Since I don't have a food processor, I used the medium side of my box grater to mince the mushrooms. I know it's a bit labour intensive for some, but for those of us who don't have the gadget, I thought the grater worked very well. I used a ricer to extract the juices (if you don't know already, save the mushroom juice and then boil it down a bit. When cooled, you can freeze it or just refrigerate until you next make a beef soup, stew or meat sauce--it adds a really nice depth of flavour). The mushroom balls came together really easily and quickly....and they were easily and quickly eaten--as snacks and as supper.

With regards to my sweet little kitties...when I moved into the condo, I came to a difficult decision. Because of the extra costs of home ownership, I wasn't sure if I could afford to keep the kitties, so my parents came to the rescue and said they'd keep them for me. Yay! We know that Beanie and My Dear Little Cardamummy are quite close, and my dad and Zeus have a certain affinity (as well as uncanny mutual resemblance), and well Hagia is just a good girl so I wasn't too worried.

Unfortunately, a couple of months into the arrangement, I noticed that Hagia wasn't happy. She'd gotten thinner and was looking rather rumpled. Quite a change from my usually well-presented little vampire-fanged grey tabby.

Well...it turned out that Beanie's bullying ways came out very strongly and stopped her from eating and kept her hiding under beds and mostly out of sight. She came out to see me and she just didn't look right...so after many conversations with my parents, I scooped her up and moved her in.

She's quite happy and can eat when she wants and not worry about being pounced on by a cat two and a half her size. She's found a few favourite spots in the condo--under the loveseat in the TV temple, on the second floor landing...and of course, on the couch, next to me as I type...she's usually a little more chatty and headbonky than this, but she had a very tiring day being a cat:



The next major event occurred about two weeks ago. Beanie honed in on poor Zeus...same story as above. But instead of Zeus coming out for a couple of minutes a day, as Hagia did, he disappeared for days at a time. Zeus is a very timid and easily picked on by the bully boy. Add to this he's a stress eater and he put on a lot of weight in a very short span of time.

Well, it all came to a boil an d my father had to break up two pretty nasty cat fights--poor Zeus was made into chutney (as my parents would say). Quite surprised that my father agreed to it, but I think he realised it was no longer fair to Z. I got the call the next day, asking if Zeus could come over here and join his sister.

How could I say no? That would just be mean.

Zeus arrived and spent the first three nights locked in my powder room, scared out of his wits, crammed between the back of the privy and the wall. My parents came to visit him every day (they've actually visited him here more often then me, since they returned from India). I don't know who was more upset about he turn in events, Zeus or my dad...really. Mummy said Daddy was crying along with Zeus...and Daddy never cries.

The next night Zeus seemed a bit happier--still very stressed, but a bit happier...the happiness would be temporarily lessened as I decided he needed a bath...weeks of hiding out in my parent's basement left him with a certain waft. He'd never been bathed before so I had the exbf do the honours. They were both quite good about it.

Zeus now has free roam of the condo. There's a wee bit of hissing still, but the siblings are able to stay underneath the same loveseat together for hours at a time (yes, they come from a hidey, paranoid line)--very good sign, I think. He spends a lot of his life hiding from me (nothing new there) but when he hears me come down the basement steps, he gets quite social and hides behind a fortress wall of laundry baskets to see what I'm doing, in hopes he'll get a little scritch. His favourite spot is the corner behind the fireplace, in a towel-lined cardboard carton. I'm convinced he's dropped at least a pound. I couldn't help but take a photo of Zeus in the laundry sink after his bath. The other photo is him in his carton behind the fireplace.



And before you ask...Yes, Beanie does miss Zeus a heckuvalot...even though "gramma" feeds him lots of his beloved chicken, he doesn't know where his brother went. No, he didn't miss Hagia at all and his ears still go back when you mention her name. He just doesn't understand that he's much bigger than the others and they don't always want to "play." It seems to be genetic...his half-brother is much the same way. And yes, I have a feeling Beanie will be blogging again...

cheers!
jasmine

Red, White or Swiss: Rösti and veal and mushrooms in white wine

or Rœstis et emincé de veau, sauce au vin blanc et champignons...

or Kartoffelrösti und Zürcher Geschnetzeltes

About a week and a half ago, the lovely Zorra of Kochtopf sent out a note saying she was homesick for her beloved Swiss homeland. Swiss National Day is on 1 August and she'd appreciate if we'd help her celebrate by blogging about dishes that were red, white or Swiss by 29 July.

I must admit that my knowledge of Switzerland and Swiss things is rather spotty:
- Its provinces are called cantons
- It's a landlocked nation with a good defensive army who supply mercenaries to the Pope
- The first Swiss-related food I had was Nestlé's chocolate something or other, the next was Swiss cheese, and the next was rösti--grated potato cakes.
- There are four official languages (German, French, Italian and Romansh)
-The Von Trapps fled the Austrian Nazis for Switzerland
-I've flown over parts of it, so I can tell you the Alps are pointy (which means the mountains are relatively young).
- The Swiss Rocket Man is pretty cool
-The once-popular Helvetica font is named after the rootword that forms Helvetii, a tribal group found in that area
- Their humanitarian tradition includes The Red Cross
- The Geneva Convention
- The League of Nations was based in Geneva
- Napoleon conquered the Swiss army in the late 1700s, imposed a new and unpopular national constitution, but within a quarter century Swiss independence was regained and the other European powers recognized the nation's neutrality through the 1814-1815 Congress of Vienna
- Sir Roger Moore lives there

When it came to cooking for this event, I decided to make some Swiss foods. Unfortunately, the only thing that came to mind was rösti--absolutely delicious, but a bit predictable. Sigh...what to do, what to do...

As luck would have it, I was invited to friends' for supper last week...and one of them is Swiss.

After a delicious meal that included gazpacho and barbecued venison, I told them of the event and asked for some suggestions--but not rösti...I'm sure there will be several versions of it for the event. I left with a borrowed copy of Schweizer Küche/Cuisine Suisse/Swiss Cooking by Michael Klein and Yvonne Tempelmann, a trilingual (German, French and English) book featuring traditional home cooking from the mountainous country.

After flipping through the pages, and pausing over all the cheese-ladened goodies (Appenzeller fried cheese fritters, spinach gnocchi with Schabziger cheese, potato-tomato bake), I decided on a mushroom and veal dish, swathed in a white wine sauce...which is recommended to be served over...umm...rösti.

Really, was there a doubt that the fried potato cakes would be absent? If there was, take a look at this post's title...it kindasorta gives it away.

Both dishes were very easy and quick to make. The rösti is a very quick and simple way of doing away with a few extra boiled potatoes from last night's supper. And I'm seriously thinking of encasing the veal dish in a puff pastry or a shortcrust pie the next time I make it...

Veal Strips from Zürich
adapted from Swiss Cooking by Michael Klein and Yvonne Tempelmann

Olive oil
500g thinly pounded veal, cut into strips
salt
pepper
a spoonful of flour
1 minced onion
200g finely sliced mushrooms
1 tsp white wine vinegar
100ml white wine
100ml beef stock
200ml heavy cream
1 Tbsp cornstarch
finely chopped parsley, for garnish (optional)

Fry the veal, remove to a bowl; sprinkle with salt, pepper and flour.

In the same pan, sauté the onions and mushrooms, adding extra oil if necessary. Add the vinegar and wine; reduce the liquid to half. In a measuring jug mix together the stock, cream and cornstarch; add to the pan a stir well. Bring it to a simmer. Tip in the meat and juices, stir well and let the sauce thicken a bit. Season to taste. Garnish with parsley if desired.

Rösti
adapted from Swiss Cooking by Michael Klein and Yvonne Tempelmann

600g day-old boiled potatoes, grated
salt
pepper
nutmeg
butter
1 minced onion

Season the potatoes and set aside.

Sauté onions in butter. Tip in the potatoes and stir--you want to heat through the potatoes, so this will take a few minutes.

At this point you could either

• Pat all the potatoes into a cake and fry over a medium flame until the potatoes become a crisp brown.

or

• Remove the potatoes to a bowl. Take out one quarter, shape into a cake and fry as above, frying as many cakes at once as will fit in your pan.

cheers!
jasmine

Mmm...Canada: Bacon, ramp and mushroom swirls

Earlier this month Jennifer and I issued a challenge to the foodblogging (and foodblog reading) world. We want to know what Canada tastes like to you. She's interested in all things sweet and I'm interested in the savoury side of life

In my entry for Jennifer's event, I stated that I think Canadian cuisine (savoury or sweet) developed through adapting family and cultural dishes using a mixture of indigenous and introduced foods. For that post, I made spiced blueberry-maple syrup that combined indigenous ingredients (maple syrup and wild blueberries) along with introduced flavours (cinnamon and black pepper).

For my own event, I'm keeping within that theme and expanding it a teeny bit.

In May a good friend of mine left a box of wild bounty she collected from her properties for me. My, those were some lovely looking ramps.

My idea was quite simple: work with flavours that play well together to bring out their oniony-garlicky best. Essentially what I think of as the basic tenet of cooking (Canadian or otherwise)-- simple homey cooking that's unfettered by fashion that uses what's easily available in a tasty way that's not only soothing but also makes you glad you're home.

In researching the various rampy treats, I came across a a recipe for a savoury ramp strudel. With a few tweaks (aided by a bit of a stromboli fascination), I decided to make savoury, swirly buns, using bacon, cheese and mushrooms. It sounds like a lot of elements, but really, it isn't. Plus, it combines those ingredients in a way I think of as Canadian in substance and spirit:

• Pigs were brought over fairly early in our history,
• Quebec has a great cheesemaking tradition, and we do make our own versions of American and European cheese
• Mushrooms are both harvested wild and cultivated
• Prairie wheat was used to mill my flour
• Herbs and spices from Europe and Asia

Again, this is a recipe that really doesn't need one. Okay...the bun part does. If you don't have a recipe you like, I made mine based on Edna Staebler's Neil's Harbour White Bread (and I used one-third the recipe).

The filling:

• streaky bacon, chopped into bits
• ramps (spring onions, green onions, globe onions or leeks will also do), green and white bits, chopped
• chopped mushrooms
• salt, pepper, thyme
• softened cream cheese (any soft or melty cheese will do)
• one beaten egg
• Parmesan cheese

Make the dough. During the first rise, fry the bacon until crisp and evacuate the bits to a bowl, leaving the fat in the pan. Fry the ramps and the mushrooms in the fat--add some oil if you need to. Season with salt, pepper and thyme. Reintroduce the bacon to pan and give it all a good stir. Remove contents to a bowl and set aside.

After the dough has doubled, role it out to a 24x30 cm (8"x12") rectangle. Smear with cream cheese and spread the rampy-baconny-mushroomy topping over the cheese. Roll the sheet up, so you have a 30-ish cm log. Slice in 12 rolls and place in a baking tin. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Let rise until doubled in size.

Heat oven to 200C/400F and bake for 10-15 minutes or until done.

Check back on Canada Day (01 July 2008) to see Mmm...Canada: The Savoury Edition's round-up)


cheers!
jasmine